


Revenge

by Iron_Eirlyssa (Eirlyssa)



Series: Eirlyssa's 2018 Bingo Fills [10]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1 Things, Actually somewhat Sam friendly too, Author is salty, Beware, Civil War Team Iron Man, Gen, Mostly Bucky friendly though, POV James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Protective James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Tony Stark Bingo 2018, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 12:03:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17022279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eirlyssa/pseuds/Iron_Eirlyssa
Summary: Five times someone wanted to take/tried to take/took revengeonTony, and one time someone took revengeforTony.





	Revenge

**Author's Note:**

> A fill for my Tony Stark Bingo 2018 square S2 - Revenge, which means _**I got a bingo!!!**_
> 
> It rather ignores everything after Civil War (including Spider-Man Homecoming, though I would've had some words on Toomes as well. A lot of those are summarized in the amazingly well-written "Of Redemptive Heroes and Family Values Villains" by Kizmet). Proceed with caution: _**very biased towards Tony’s side**_. It is very salty and critical of a lot of people, not in the least Team Cap, and if that’s not your thing, it’s probably better not to read. If it is your thing, I hope you enjoy it.

1

Ivan Vanko was not the first in a long line of nutjobs that wanted revenge on Tony for one reason or another. Rhodey knew he probably wasn’t the last, either. That didn’t make it any easier to deal with.

The entire situation around the time Vanko showed up had been a clusterfuck of epic proportions, though. Tony had been all too busy pushing everyone close to him away, and Rhodey hadn’t taken the amount of pushing he probably should have. He hadn’t even noticed how the armor worked for him, had been fitted to him in a way that was no coincidence. He hadn’t wanted to notice, because he’d been too pissed.

Then Vanko had been enough of an asshole to reprogram the suit to _attack_ Tony, forcing Rhodey through the motions of almost killing his best friend. And why?

While Rhodey wasn’t blind to Tony’s faults, he wasn’t _ever_ going to buy that there was an excuse to go into villainy. The fact that this moron did it because of Tony’s asshole of a father taking credit for a two-person invention, though Vanko’s own asshole of a father had been involved enough due to, you know, _espionage_ , was even worse. The fact that he apparently believed that he should have been in Tony’s place just made Rhodey want to bash his head into a wall at the stupidity of it. Not to mention that Vanko Sr. apparently wasn’t involved enough in the Arc Reactor research to be able to replicate it on his own.

Overall, Rhodey couldn’t say he regretted that the guy was dead.

2

Aldrich Killian didn’t impress him a whole lot more. This guy, at least, had a vendetta against Tony himself. Unfortunately, that vendetta was not only relatively stupid (because quite honestly? Approaching a drunk person in an elevator during a party for your sales pitch instead of just _making an appointment_ was not the brightest of ideas, no matter how smart you claimed to be) but also resulted in other people being hurt. And that, if anything, was something Rhodey didn’t tolerate.

It was also what made him wonder why people were so content on blaming _Tony_ for these kinds of things. Yes, he’d brushed Killian off when approached. But as his best friend, Rhodey knew _exactly_ how often Tony was approached by people trying to pitch their ideas to him, to the point where someone had followed him to the bathroom once. Considering these people often weren’t the kind to be brushed off easily, Rhodey himself had been the one to suggest just telling them to meet somewhere else and then not showing up as an easy way to get rid of them. He’d done it to plenty of people, and Killian was the only one who’d decided _terrorism_ was a brilliant reaction to it. Almost like there was something wrong with _his_ reaction, rather than Tony’s actions being an invitation for terrorism.

But no, everyone was more than content to look at Tony, telling him how rude he’d been for brushing Killian off, as though what Killian had done was a reasonable response. Rhodey wanted to smack all of them (and Tony as well, who ended up feeling guilty for it and for the way Pepper had ended up).

Fortunately, Killian was also dealt with, though not without leaving scars.

3 & 4

Wanda and Pietro Maximoff were delusional. No more, no less. Blaming Tony for making weapons, he could theoretically get (even though most of the military had been _far_ more frustrated about the fact that Tony had _stopped_ doing so). Blaming that weapon for the deaths of their parents, completely disregarding whoever had bought and fired the thing, that was where they lost him. Especially considering Rhodey knew about three different ways that bomb could have ended up in Sokovia, and none of them would have been Tony’s fault in the first place.

The party and Ultron’s creation had been a mess Rhodey hadn’t known how to deal with at the time. It was only later (and after a mandatory psych meeting) that he was able to make any sense of it at all, and it made him suspicious.

Tony had never been an idiot, had never risked anything but himself and his possessions unnecessarily (except maybe when he’d been dying). So there was something very concerning about the fact that Ultron had been created (activated?), especially when it promptly claimed it hated Tony and everything he stood for.

When Tony told him about the vision he’d had in the base in Sokovia, he thought it had probably been the scepter, trying to get him to use it. Rhodey… wondered, though he’d probably never be sure. The scepter had powers, certainly, but it hadn’t demonstrated more than a slight influence on its surroundings - unlike the Scarlet Witch, who had created visions for all of Tony’s teammates that were perfectly suited to unnerve them as much as possible. Not to mention the twins had then come in with Rogers, who had promptly _attacked_ Tony.

It was almost a relief when one of them ended up dying, even though Pietro overall wasn’t the bigger danger. Wanda and her powers, Rhodey wasn’t so sure about. So he decided to stay close to keep an eye on her. She may have said she had reformed, but he’d seen the hatred still in her eyes when she looked at Tony. One ‘mistake’ was all it would take, and Rhodey would be there to make sure the chances of that mistake would be less.

5

Helmut Zemo at least hated all of the Avengers about equally (and might actually not hate Tony as much as he did some of the others). Still, there was no denying that what he had done had caused a lot of damage, both to innocent lives and to the Avengers Team. Or what was left of it after he was done taking advantage of every single situation he could. Of all of them, he’d probably hurt Tony both the most and the least.

There had been no physical attack, no attempted murder, no extraordinary powers used. Not by Zemo. Instead, he’d played all of them until the truth came out in the worst way possible. And the way he had played it had ended up destroying Tony more than any of the others, except perhaps Maximoff’s mind-rape, ever had. (The fact that he wanted revenge for something that had happened in part thanks to the Witch was something that made Rhodey wonder about irony, sometimes.)

Zemo had wanted to hurt all of them, avenge his fallen family, and the results were what ended Rhodey’s patience.

+1

More than anything, Tony was his little brother. He was the broken idiot Rhodey had gotten to know when the kid was fifteen and had taken under his wing. He was a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs, occasional fear and nausea and elation and adrenaline at turns, and if Rhodey had a choice to go back in time, he’d do it all over again (except maybe better) because Tony was worth it.

And they’d broken him.

He could have forgiven them being the reason his back was broken - accidents happen, and he knew none of them had meant for it to happen. He could have forgiven a difference in opinion - hell, his best friend _thrived_ on discussion. He could have even forgiven a fight - he was a soldier, after all.

What he couldn’t forgive, of any of them, was the betrayal. And he was determined to make sure he would set that right.

A discussion with Tony had him convincing his friend to deal with the future of superheroes, with inventing and with keeping SI up. Three jobs were enough to keep even Tony more than busy. In the meantime, Rhodey would be the one dealing with the fallout of this so-called ‘Civil War’. He even promised Tony, who was not okay but still smart enough to see the glint in his eyes, that it would be nothing illegal. Oh no, he was doing this the _long_ way round.

Rhodey had contacts, after all. He’d been US Armed Forces way before he’d been an Avenger, and he even had experience with businesses and press thanks to his friendships (and sometimes working relationships) with Tony and Pepper. Getting permission to keep looking for Tony in Afghanistan might’ve lost him a few favors, but War Machine had made him earn them back, and then some. If he wanted, Rhodey could make _waves_.

And he wanted.

It started slow, of course. A whisper of discontent, a small article in the paper. A few talks to people in the Military (and yes, he was taking Ross down, too). And once the snowball got rolling, it kept growing bigger.

Ross was exposed, evidence coming forward from a lot of known corners and a few anonymous sources that might have been his daughter. He lost his job, most of his honors, and certainly his dignity.

Lang would be walking straight into a new trial if he ever came back, having broken his parole in order to use technology that belonged to someone else (and neither Pym nor his daughter were happy about that) to destroy a European airport. Visitation rights for his daughter were done for, his ex completely over giving him chances when he made decisions like these.

Barton wouldn’t be going home to his farm again. Considering he was in the wind and unable to be found, his wife got a divorce in absentia. Germany was still unhappy with him, expressing their desire to prosecute, and Rhodey had convinced both Tony and Vision to press charges for the attack on the compound.

Romanoff was in the wind, but she’d be awaiting charges as well. Breaking the Accords meant she was up for disciplinary action, which also meant they could let her go. Considering the accessory to a double murder charge raised against her, he didn’t think the Accords would be too eager to keep her around. It also didn’t help that he’d pushed the discussion on the SHIELD data dump to the forefront again, which didn’t work in her favor. Should she return, he didn’t think it would end well for her.

Wilson, Rhodey had liked. He’d thought they’d gotten close. Tony had told him about Wilson’s reaction to his being shot down, had told him Wilson was the one who’d had enough faith in him to tell him where Rogers and Barnes had gone. So he’d been kind, for a given value of it. The man might not have been dishonorably discharged from the Army, but the VA wouldn’t take him back without a lot of therapy from his side - honestly, Rhodey thought it’d help him remove his head out of Rogers’ ass, because clearly he was close to needing surgical removal.

Maximoff… well, she’d been easy and difficult both. But with Tony no longer standing in the way of prosecution and deportation, there were enough people who would like a piece of her. The released footage of her attacking the Hulk in South Africa sure hadn’t helped that along, and had even sparked some discussion on how her most severe crimes tended to be outside of Europe and the US - South Africa, South Korea, Nigeria… People were less and less inclined to look kindly upon her, and Rhodey was glad for it. The removal of Tony’s protection had actually been enough to get her ball rolling. The fact that the collar was now perfected and no longer inhumane made it all the better.

Then, of course, there were the difficult cases.

He’d talked with Tony about both Rogers and Barnes, as well as what had happened in that Siberian bunker that had Tony broken both physically and mentally. It had cemented his decisions on what to do with the both of them.

Barnes, both he and Tony recognized, was Not Okay. There had been a multitude of crimes, most committed as the Winter Soldier but some after he’d broken away from HYDRA, and it would have been easy to let loose the hounds. He didn’t want to, though, and neither did Tony. Instead, he pointed out time and again how Barnes had been a POW, tortured and mutilated and hurt. He didn’t argue a trial - crimes had been committed, and victims deserved justice. But there wasn’t a judge in the world that wouldn’t prescribe a lot of therapy in a safe place, ideally away from the influence of Rogers. Rhodey had a few good options picked out already, even.

Rogers was both the best and the worst. He had a lot of people still believing in the legend, the _story_. So what Rhodey started with was deconstructing the story, bit by little bit. He wasn’t a Captain - he’d hardly had any military training whatsoever, let alone _command training_. He had tried to enlist with a laundry list of physical issues, not the least of which was _**exposure to tuberculosis**_. He’d gone against orders, again and again, and miraculously things had ended well. But then there had been the SHIELD data dump, and while most regular people (and most of the Avengers, he’d found) had no idea about the consequences of it, the people in charge knew _exactly_ how bad an idea it had been and how many problems it had caused, how many deaths. When the world then heard that all of the destruction, all of the deaths, of the ‘Civil War’ had been because Steve Rogers thought the _safest hands_ were his, they collectively decided that maybe, just maybe, they weren’t. So Steve, too, had charges waiting for him - the SHIELD data dump, accessory to the double murder of the Starks, Lagos, Bucharest, Leipzig/Halle, the RAFT breakout, even Siberia…

None of them were getting away with it. Not this time.

What delighted Rhodey most was the fact that Tony had been looking better than ever. As reasonable as it would have been to be brought down by them, the fact that Rhodey fought for him had given him new energy that he’d happily pushed into his various exploits. SI was doing better than ever, Rhodey was walking again, the Accords had been improved almost to perfection, and superhero groups that were _way_ better than the Avengers were on the rise.

They didn’t need the Avengers anymore - none of them would be getting away because they were a necessity. And Rhodey would be right there to make sure they wouldn’t be getting away for any other reason, either.

No one hurt his Tony. Not without consequences.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you have had fun reading. You can also find me on [Tumblr](https://eirlyssa.tumblr.com/), though I will be joining the protest as well by not logging on the 17th.


End file.
